Mark Olson (Founding member of the Jayhawks)

 88.1 KDHX Presents:

Sunday, September 19 • Doors 7pm • Show 8pm • $10 Flat • Over 21 Only • Buy Tickets

w/ Vandaveer

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As a founding member and principal singer/songwriter of The Jayhawks, Olson spent a decade at the front of the alt-country movement, until leaving the band—and the familiar environs of Minneapolis—in 1995, for the California desert.

While The Jayhawks were experimenting with pop and rock influences and earning mainstream appeal, Olson wanted to strip back down to the essentials. He formed The Creekdippers with then-wife Victoria Williams and violinist Mike Russell, paring his brand of timeless folk down to a desert roots ramble.

After a decade with The Creekdippers, Olson left the desert for the train cars of Europe, creating what would become his 2007 solo debut, The Salvation Blues, a poetic rumination on redemption that earned him comparisons to the likes of Gram Parsons and Bob Dylan.

During that journey, he reconnected with former Jayhawks partner Gary Louris and in 2009 they released their first album together in fourteen years, Ready For The Flood.

Many Colored Kite is both a culmination of everything that came before it, and an exploration of uncharted waters. Recorded over a month’s time in Portland with producer/engineer Beau Raymond (Chris Robinson, Devendra Banhart), the album finds Olson embracing a decidedly brighter path towards the future, exploring themes of freedom and struggle, isolation and belonging, spirituality and love.  

A message of positivity weaves through Many Colored Kite, offering up a nearly radiant version of Olson that not only hearkens back to his Creekdippers days, but also looks forward to the future of folk. There’s the sweetly melodic “No Time To Live Without Her,” inspired by the simple love songs of the ‘60s, featuring ethereal harmonies from influential British folksinger Vashti Bunyan. “Bluebell Song,” inspired by flowers dotted along miles of Texas highway, recounts the experience of sharing those slices of Americana with his two international bandmates, Norwegian singer and multi-instrumentalist Ingunn Ringvold and Italian violinist Michele Gazich.

The experience of being on the road with people close to him is what ultimately shapes the narrative of the album.  In this case, thousands of miles spent in vans, trains, and planes for The Salvation Blues led to the creation of Many Colored Kite. “It was more than a band—Ingunn was my girlfriend and Michele was this guy whose company I really enjoyed—and the way to keep that going was to write a new album together.”

Ultimately, Many Colored Kite is a statement album. It’s Mark Olson acknowledging the past, but making a conscious decision to lift up and continue his journey forward. “Let’s face it—I worked hard on this record. I put everything I had into this one. I tried to play my best, sing my best, and write my best. I want this to look towards the future, and I hope our story goes on.”

Vandaveer

VANDAVEER is the alt-folk song-singing/record making/globetrotting project penned and put forth by DC-by-way-of-Kentucky tunesmith Mark Charles Heidinger.

Vandaveers debut album, Grace & Speed, a mostly live, stripped down affair, swiftly entered this great big dusty world in the spring of 2007 garnering rave reviews and comparisons to Donovan, Dylan, Waits, Drake, Simon, and the like. Touring continually on both sides of the Atlantic ever since, Vandaveer has played 250+ shows, sharing stages with a host of humbling artists including Bon Iver, Alejandro Escovedo, Vashti Bunyan, Vetiver, Evan Dando, Scout Niblett, The Ditty Bops, Smog, Fleet Foxes, Alela Diane and his dear friends in DCs ramshackle collective, The Federal Reserve. In addition to said Vandaveering, Heidinger has been known to fraternize and conspire with other music-making hooligans, primarily as a bassist with fellow DCers These United States.

Vandaveers sophomore effort, Divide & Conquer, touches upon similar themes found in its elder sibling, winding timeworn themes of love & death, malice & goodwill, sin & perseverance into (mostly) four-minute vignettes. To see D&C through, Vandaveer enlisted the able assistance of longtime collaborator and producer Duane Lundy, brothers-in-arms/TUS bandmates Robby Cosenza and Justin Craig, and most notably, his fair sister Rose Guerin, supplying the loveliest harmonies this side of Eden. A decidedly more produced venture, D&C offers up a flourishing chamber folk companion to its bedroomy lo-fi folk/pop predecessor.

Divide & Conquer was released in France, Belgium and Switzerland in April 2009 via Alter K. Records and in the USA on August 25th, 2009 via Supply & Demand Music.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 13th, 2010 at 6:25 pm and is filed under Concerts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.